#137- Rain/Cry + Rain/Smile

I have a bad day story and a good day story. Which story you want to hear it first?

If you feel like to skip the bad day story “Cry with the Rain”, read only the good day story “smile in the rain”.

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Cry with the Rain:

I have tweeted about the rain 6 times since Dec 14th.

1) Cloudy morning in Los Angeles. It’s good for my mood in writing :) Have a wonderful day to you :)
Tuesday, December 14, 2010 7:57 AM

2) No blue sky in Los Angeles again. Light rain makes perfect mood in work/ writing :) Have a beautiful day to you :)
Wednesday, December 15, 2010 9:58:35 AM

3) How are you? Rain Rain and Rain in Los Angeles. Have a wonderful weekend to you!
Saturday, December 18, 2010 9:33:25 PM

4) Rain in Los Angeles. Staying at home with rain sounds, it’s so nice!
Sunday, December 19, 2010 12:44:41 PM

5) Still rain in Los Angeles. Have a nice day to you!
Tuesday, December 21, 2010 9:14:31 AM

6) Rain is nice,but some rains are not nice. Leaking wall in my bed room is not nice :( I live in a nice apartment,but L.A. rain made me cry :(
Thursday, December 23, 2010 12:34:58 AM

As you know or see, there is a winter storm (rainstorm) in Los Angeles for a couple of weeks this month.

I love rain when I am staying at home, because rain makes my feeling romantic and melancholic, but the rain on the 22nd…it made me cry!!!

It’s a long story (I had many leaks in my bed room window in the past)…on the 22nd, my wall leaked in my bed room.

I live in a nice apartment building (we have 263 units, nice fitness center, one large swimming pool and three spa/jacuzzi) and my place is in front of the swimming pool and I have a nice view of trees, palm trees and flowers…but…I forgot I live in Los Angeles.

In general, many houses and buildings in Los Angeles are so weak for heavy rain.

As you know, I am a clean freak and a perfectionist. OMG…I was mad at rain and people who can’t think well…

You know what the maintenance manager told me at first?

Maintenance manager: Yoko, I can replace the wall with new wood, so the water (rain) is going to be somewhere. Don’t worry!

Me: What are you talking about??? Are you nuts??? You should find out the cause of the leaks first! Then please fix my wall.

Maintenance manager: Oh…Yoko, don’t worry, I have an experience of construction, I know what I am doing.

Me: You don’t know what you are doing!!! (I was yelled at him so hard!! ha ha ha :) ) If you just fix my wall without fix the cause, the water is coming back to my wall again. Find out the cause first!!! You should check the outside wall and find some cracks on the wall. If there are no cracks on the outside wall, it might not major leaks. You should check the rooms of 3rd floor and 4th floor window frames. It might their window frames are leaking. And have you checked downstairs? It might wet the wall like mine.

Maintenance manager: Ok…I will check upstairs and downstairs, but I have to get their permission to enter their rooms, so it takes time.

Me: No…this is in urgent!!! Emergency! You should do it NOW!!! (OMG…I was so mad at him! poor guy…ha ha ha :) )

Then past hours…nobody calls me or come to my door. Again, I talked with apartment manager, assistant manager, maintenance manager and maintenance staff on the phone.

I told apartment manager that if you don’t do anything now, I am going to call your boss, I am going to call headquarter to complain about this bad management.

Then…apartment manager, maintenance manager and two of maintenance staff came to see my wall right away.

Apartment manager: Yoko, I am so sorry. Would you like to stay at the hotel?

Me: No…I am ok. Please do something now! I am so mad at him (maintenance manager), he doesn’t know what he is doing.

Apartment manager: No…Yoko. He is nice. Please trust him.

Me: I don’t care he is nice! I just need nice service!!!

After the conversation…one guy (maintenance staff) made a hole to check the inside of my wall, he said to me that the rain is from the outside of the wall. (Of course!)

As I am a clean freak (a little bit OCD), I had to cover my bed, fax machine and book shelf with large vinyl sheets and had to move my arm chair and lamps to my living room…

After this small construction work…I cleaned everywhere…because dusts were all over in my place from this problem…

During the cleaning at night, I called my mom in Japan and told her what happened…and I cried so hard!!!

It was like…“WHY ME” mood… ha ha ha :)

After cleaning my rooms, I felt better…but there is a hole in my wall in the bed room…the rainstorms is coming back next week…maintenance staff couldn’t fix the outside wall this weekend…I hope they can fix it on Monday(tomorrow) and I hope I am not going to have a bad day again next week…

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Smile in the Rain:

Yesterday,on Christmas day, I had a wonderful Christmas dinner with my best friend (Suzie)and her family at her home.

Suzie emailed me this morning:
“Yoko,GOOD MORNING!!!!!! Thank you so much for everything yesterday : ) I love my lifetime sister : ) and best friend : ) Have a Glorious DAY : ) Love, Suzie”

Oh…everything was perfect! I had a great time with Suzie and her family.

Her Turkey was so soft with moisture (her gravy and cranberry sauce were original! Soooooooo gooooooood!), Mashed Potatoes was great taste with butter and garlic, Sweet Potatoes was delicious with orange flavor and marshmallow melted in my mouth, Salad was fresh, Maple/Sage Stuffing was soooooooo delicious(I usually don’t like it, but her stuffing was so good, so I ate a lot of them!) ,Rolls were so good, Tiramisu Raspberry Trifle was the 5 star!

Suzie’s kids are cutest:
They (two girls) are so adorable! They got each DSI (by Nintendo) for their Christmas present from grand mom & dad (Suzie’s parents) and they were playing with DSI. It was fun to see they became a journalist or were being in the Harry Potter in DSI.

They said to me, “spend the night! please stay!” …oh…they are so sweet and cute!!! I love them!!!

Suzie and I are lifetime friends:
We had great conversation as always. We shared so many secrets :) When I came home, we talked on the phone another one hour until 1:00am! I am so glad that she is in my life.

Rain returned to Los Angeles at night and I was driving in the rain. Yes, rain is back…but I was in great mood in my car.

Smile in the rain…

Life is beautiful.
I hope you had a great Christmas time :)

P.S. We will have another rain next week…rain/cry or rain/smile??? I hope I will have a big smile :)

I was thinking about “how can we resolve issues of terrorism
and war in this world, can we talk instead of fighting?”

And then I realized “I need to think about my issue
first” (since I moved into my apartment in Montrose one year ago)… yes, I have
an issue about my living situation… my upstairs neighbor (64 years old woman who is not working) has been waking me up
every night (around 11:15pm, 12:15am and 1:15am) with loud squeezing footsteps (it sounds not normal & regular footsteps) for one year… I had to
call police twice, and I fought with this neighbor twice…

I tried to go to bed at the same time when this neighbor
goes to bed… it doesn’t work (for me late night ene…

I really think that the founder of Kitson, Mr. Fraser
Kitson Ross is genius for marketing & business. He knows how to entertain
customer, and he knows what L.A. is and how to enjoy L.A.

About Kitson and Fraser, I have written a lot on Senken-Shimbun
and LA Celeb (their business closed, but it was a popular Japanese online
shopping site), and I also made a story about Kitson on Japanese TV program
(TBS TV).

At this time, I interviewed Fraser and wrote an article
about Kitson, him and his new store KITROSS on Senken-Shimbun (major Japanese
fashion business newspaper).

If you want to know about Kitson, Fraser and KITROSS,
read below.

My translation (into English) is not perfect, but my
Japanese article is more than perfect, ha ha…; )